


Wordbending

by Writerleft



Series: Comes Marching Home [32]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: (also of course), (of course), Canon Compliant, Editor! Asami, F/F, Fluff, Korrasami Month 2016, Prompt:Writer! Korra, within my canon-continuation universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 21:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8550133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writerleft/pseuds/Writerleft
Summary: Korra decides to write down information about Avatar Wan, afraid that it will be lost once she is gone. The project gets a bit more detailed than she expected.





	

Korra had known struggle. She had known frustration. She had defeated mighty enemies, fought empires, even overcome herself.

So why was it that a blank page was so difficult?

She picked up the pen, holding it firmly, setting the tip against the paper. She stared at it. She knew what she wanted to write about. Why couldn't she just... go?

'Avatar' she wrote, then crossed it out.

'The First' no that wasn't right either. How was she even supposed to approach this?

Asami cleared her throat. Korra turned, noticing her wife leaning against the wall in the hallway, regarding her. “What are you doing?”

Korra sighed, and turned back to the paper. “Not much.”

Asami stepped up behind her, reaching around Korra's shoulders, crossing her arms in front of her. “What are you _trying_ to do?”

She craned her neck, accepting and returning the kiss she knew was coming. “Write. Even before my uncle severed my link to the past Avatars, hardly anyone knew about Avatar Wan. It feels really important for me to get that written down, not just for Avatars down the line, but so everybody can understand it, you know?”

“Oh, that's a great idea!” Asami said, leaning forward. She chuckled at the paper. “Not having much luck yet, though?”

“I don't even know where to start! This is like, the beginning of everything, but do I talk about his childhood, do I talk about Raava and Vaatu? The Lion Turtles? What?!”

Asami's hand slid down Korra's arm, soothingly. “Maybe start with that. Just list out all the things you want to talk about. Maybe there will be some common themes, or some structure will emerge, once you have all that down to look at.”

“Hmm... okay, that... that's a good idea.” Korra scrunched up her brow, thinking of everything she could, quickly jotting down wide topics. Spirit Wilds. Feeding the poor. Lion Turtle Cities.

Asami pecked her on the cheek. “I'll let you work.”

“Mff,” Korra answered, distracted.

 

**

 

The next time Asami found her, she was stalking around the living room, slashing her pen through the air. “More writing problems?”

“My list is too long!” Korra growled. “I tried writing it again, first in the order things happened, then maybe by what seemed most important, then again by like, the things that are still more important today, but even then there's still so much and I can't even figure out how to untangle any of it!”

Asami laughed, taking one of Korra's arms in each of her hands and guiding them downward. “I know how you feel. A lot of my projects start the same way. It helps me when I sketch my ideas out—seeing them tells me what is and isn't going to work in a way that days and days of thinking about it won't do. Why don't you try outlining it a few different ways, see what structures feel right to you as you organize them?”

Korra set her head against Asami's shoulder. “You always have these answers. Maybe you should write it?”

“I don't know the story like you do, love,” Asami said, squeezing Korra's hands. “You'll do great. If you'd like, though, I'll edit it for you. Maybe punch up the language a little?”

Korra leaned back, wide-eyed. “Why did nobody tell me I can punch language?”

 

**

 

Korra paced from the kitchen to the balcony and back, wearing a track into the floor as Asami sat quietly, sipping her tea and reading Korra's first draft. Why did she have to be so quiet?! No questions or comments or anything, for hours, and aaah!

Finally, Asami set the last page on the pile at her side. She took an excruciating moment to sip her tea, thoughtfully, still not looking at her wife.

“Well?” Korra finally asked, breaking the silence.

Asami kept her face still, setting her tea down on the table. “It's a little rough,” Asami admitted, staring at the piled pages.

Korra sank. “It's bad.”

“I didn't say that.”

“That's what you thought.”

“No,” Asami said, finally meeting Korra's gaze. “That's what _you_ thought. Look, I know this is important to you and you want to do it right, and that's going to entail taking some honest, well-meaning criticism. But you've never written anything before, of course you're going to have a learning curve. I didn't get discouraged when Dad said my first design wouldn't work.”

Korra crossed her arms, pouting. “You were nine.”

“I was still learning,” Asami said. Then she smiled, and patted the couch next to her. “Here, sit down, I'll walk you through what I think.”

Korra was still sulking, but she did so.

 

**

 

“Hey,” Asami said, approaching Korra from behind on the balcony. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Korra sighed.

“Mhm.” She placed a hand on the back of Korra's neck, as always finding some way to be touching her. “So what's with the tea and pensive stare at the horizon?”

Damn, caught. “I read through my Wan manuscript again.”

Asami nodded. “Ah.”

“I've spent all this time, doing all the things you said, like toning down my... what's that word you used to spare my feelings?”

Asami chuckled. “Exuberance?”

“Yeah, that. I've been working on those things, and coming up with ways to fix things I just didn't think worked right, and just... I don't think it's fixable.”

Asami was silent for a while, her thumb made circles at the top of Korra's spine. “Well I know you're not going to give up. That's not a thing you do.”

Korra chuckled. “You're right about that.” She sighed again. “I think I need to start over.”

Her wife's hand trailed from her neck down to her waist, pulling her into a side-embrace. “That's rough. But don't let yourself feel like all that work you did is going to waste. That was you learning. That was you finding out what doesn't work. The next one will be better.”

She nodded. “I just hate fighting twice over the same territory, you know?”

Asami kissed her neck. “If it's only words you're fighting over and over, I'm a happy woman.”

 

**

 

“What that?”

Korra turned from her seat in the workroom, looking at little Mian in the doorway. She motioned her daughter to come join her, settling her on her lap with mutual smiles.

“Just something mommy was working on, before we found you.”

“Story?” Mian asked.

“Yeah, it is!” Korra said, ruffling her hair. “It's about the first Avatar. WAAAAY before mommy was around.”

Mian giggled, tucking her face against Korra's side.

“Do you want me to tell it to you?”

Mian nodded enthusiastically. Korra grinned, hugging her little girl, still enchanted by the very reality of that. “Okay, nugget. Let's see... well it all began a long time ago, before any of the big cities or countries we have today...

Korra rocked Mian gently as she spoke of Wan's early adventures, making voices for the various people he encountered, to Mian's delight. By the time she got to the deep, booming voice of the Lion Turtle, her audience had expanded, with Asami leaning in the door frame, giggling at her wife's antics, as obviously overwhelmed with fondness for her newly-expanded family as Korra was.

Korra had taken the tale all the way to the Spirit Oasis before hearing Asami whisper her name, and nod downward. Mian had drifted off to sleep, a little fist clutching Korra's shirt.

She stroked their daughter's hair for a moment, before rising gently and carrying her off to bed. She and Asami watched her sleep for a long moment, arms around each other, before sneaking away.

When Korra returned to the study, she looked at her half-finished second draft, and set it aside. She took a new sheet of paper and started again.

 

**

 

Korra ducked through the door, Mian on her shoulders as they returned from playing with Naga. Flying back might normally have been faster, but there was no _way_ she was going to glide around with her daughter! Though she was getting a bit too heavy to carry around like this much longer...

“Wondered when you two would be getting back,” Asami said from the kitchen. She had a cup of juice ready for Mian and a kiss ready for Korra. “Did you tire poor Naga out!”

“Sure did mama!” Mian said, taking the juice to the table, where she'd left her coloring this morning.

Korra lingered. “Well? Did you read it?”

“I did,” Asami said, leaning back against the counter. “It's good, Korra. Very readable.”

“I wanted to write it so Mian could understand, but without leaving out important details.”

“And you managed! Wan was very relatable.”

Korra beamed. “You think it's ready, then?”

“I didn't say that.”

“Hnf.” Korra leaned against the ice box, crossing her arms. “What more is there to do?”

“Tighten the language. A few tweaks here or there. I noted a few places where you might have gone a little too simplistic, a few areas where you got too detailed—”

“If I left it in there it's because it's important!”

Asami held up her hands. “I'm not saying it's awful, Korra. Really, it is good. But you want this to be a primary source of information that will last for millenia. That means polish. Let me put it this way... do you want this to be a Cabbage Car, or a Satomobile?”

Korra bit off her reply, pointing at her wife with narrowed eyes. “That's a low and unfair argument tactic, miss.”

Asami winked at her.

“Pfffffffiiiine,” Korra said, rolling her shoulders. “Let me see your notes.”

**

 

Korra landed on the porch, weary from her long journey. Mian and her friend Piqtuk spotted her at once, rising from their game on the floor at once. Mian was on her before she even had the door open, arms wrapped around her waist. “Mom, you're back!”

“And glad about it too,” Korra said, hugging the back of Mian's head. Asami stepped out of her office, drawn by the commotion.

“Another successful Avatar mission?” she asked.

Korra nodded. “I don't think that particular border will see another dispute for some time.” She turned back to the kids. “Hey, Piqtuk. Keeping our girl out of trouble?”

“The worst of it, at least,” Piqtuk said, blushing slightly.

Korra and Asami shared a look and a small smile. “Well, glad to hear it.”

Asami cleared her throat. “A letter came for you.”

She quirked an eyebrow. Letters came for both of them all the time. They'd had to hire a secretary to parse through most of them, it was simply two much for two busy mothers to deal with.

Asami tilted her head back to the office, stepping inside. Korra rustled Mian's hair and followed.

Her wife was rustling through a drawer when Korra came in, and produced a wax-sealed scroll.

Korra looked at the owl sigil pressed into the wax. “Won Xi Tong?”

Asami nodded. “I sent him your manuscript.”

The Avatar hissed through her teeth. “Asami, I told you, it's not ready!”

She shook her head. “It was never going to _be_ ready if you kept fiddling with it forever.”

“You're the one who said I should make it the best I could.”

“You wouldn't trust me when I said you had!” Asami said, stepping forward and putting her hands over her wife's. “I figured, maybe a second opinion would help. Open it.”

Korra glared at her wife a moment, then sighed and broke the seal. She scanned the knowledge spirit's impeccable calligraphy, keeping her face impassive as Asami looked on.

Finally, she closed the scroll, rolling it up, tapping it thoughtfully against her chin.

“Well?” Asami asked, biting her lip.

“He wants a published copy,” Korra said. "Signed."

Asami grinned, leaping forward to hug her. “I _told_ you! If that old fuddy-duddy approves you must admit it's ready, right?”

“Yeah, fine.” She kissed Asami's neck. “I guess it's about time, too. I've been working on it for ages. Guess it might be time to move on to my next subject.”

Asami moaned quietly at Korra's lips. “Yeah? Who's that?”

“Asami Sato.”

Her wife went rigid, locking eyes with her. “Don't you dare.”

Korra smirked. “Raava thinks it's a good idea.”

“Don't give me that!”

Korra laughed, stepping back out and heading for the kitchen.

“Korra, you're kidding, right?” Asami had her hands at her side. She stomped her foot at Korra's backwards glance. “Korra!”

“I have to get back at you for all the statues somehow. Besides, I've got the writers' itch now, Asami! There's no helping it!”

“Korra!”

“Hey, kids! Who wants to hear stories awesome stories about Asami Sato?”

“Ooh!” “About mama? Yeah!”

“ _Korra_!”

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Visit me on my tumblr! Say hi! ](https://threehoursfromtroy.tumblr.com/)


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